Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Oh I watch, and have experienced their decisions.
The results of their decisions, is the creation of Intrepid Studios.
The five years between UO launching and raid content being made not shit was a period of learning for MMO developers (where they learned lessons some are about to relearn, it would seem).
The notion of adding more complex raid encoutners to the game was first bought up in 2000, but it wasn't until around 2002 (iirc) that it was made possible for the transition to really cross the line, as this is when players had access to data, and that data allowed players to keep an eye on more things, which allowed the develoeprs to design encounters with more going on at the same time. It also allowed players and guilds to get closer to each other in terms of capability, which meant that developers had a more focused difficulty in which to target content at. It meant they could target things at that difficulty knowing that it would pose a good challenge to all guilds while still being able to be killed.
What developers have absolutely no idea of right now is how much a player is able to keep track of without a combat tracker, as there are no games out there that have even attempted to find out this information.
There is a solid amount of knowledge in terms of what players can do with a combat tracker, but none as to what can be done without.
This has nothing to do with game engines, with technological improvements. Nor does it have anything to do with combat asssistants as per Rift (I left that game well before they were a thing).
All it has to do with is how much a person is able to keep track of in their head at one time.
Combat tracker just gives too much information and avoid iterations.
It only takes 1 pull to know what type of damage the boss does, biggest damaging skill, and one shot mechanics.
Instead, if you have to visually guess it, takes more time, and it's also more mysterious.
For example, totally unrelated, but when playing Call of Duty Warzone and I start getting hit, it takes some time/ability to figure it out.
Where am I getting shot from?
Will people use meters? Sure. Then let them use them. But IS taking a harsh stance means a lot for the rest of the playerbase, because the game is not supposed to be played that way.
And if you choose to use an addon, suit yourself.
Plus if there are combat logs in the chat window, you can easily figure out what killed you after dying.
A little. Ultima Online was released on September 24, 1997 and using your timeline to 2002 this is 5 years of learning. This is when you had the "EQ" zerg raids for example. EQ coming our on March 16th 1999. So it supports that period of learning.
You cant discount the game engines at the time however as they were not as "powerful" as they are today so programmaticly you had far more limitations. Look at what you had access to.. Unreal v1, from the brand spanking new game Unreal, a custom 3D engine for EQ, Gamebryo for DAoC, etc. I even remember you couldn't even really play EQ unless you had a "3D" card like a Voodoo or Voodoo 2 from 3dfx..
But I do agree with that the amount of things one person can keep track of is something that has to be weighed. This is where dungeon design is critical. Dungeons will need to be designed with the fact that the player wont have access to certain information and will have to rely on one another to play there "role".
It will be interesting and it will be challanging.
There is a difference between experiencing a decision and understanding it.
Edit; the two are often mutually exclusive.
This. It's like when parents have told their children no.. over and over again, but the children still keep saying "But why mommy, why" and just can't let it go.
Ultimately, it's Steven's vision... And there are many people that agrees with him and the devs on this particular issue. If people spend money on a product they are not totally sure about, that's totally on them.
I totalyl agree, and have said that at least a dozen times on various threads in relation to this topic.
That doesn't mean we cant discuss it among ourselfs and occasionally direct a question at Steven, who may or may not answer.
This is the risk of backing a game before it comes out. A risk everyone who pre-ordered should have been aware of. The money you put in doesn't buy you the ability to dictate how the game should be made. You aren't buying Intrepid shares.
Nope.
Edit; There was a comment a short while ago from one of the other long time posters here in regards to me having not got around to changing my default profile pic.
So I changed it.
I am not demanding anything, I never have in this regard.
All I have done is put forward the best argument that I can on the topic. If you think that counts as demanding, that is probably because you can't find a suitable argument to counter the one I am putting forward.
The only argument people against combat trackers have is "because Steven said so", which isn't much of an argument when the discussion is whether or not that was a good decision.
That implementation of them is not great, this is true.
This is why the suggestion I have always made (from May last year) is that combat trackers should be tools that are only available to guilds that want them.
This means that the act of joining that guild means you now have access to a combat tracker, but it also means that it is in that guilds best interest to then assist you in getting to where they want you to be.
It forces guilds to take on the role of trainer for all new recruits, as there is no way to expect new recruits to be at the point where the guild will want them to be.
This means that all the new recruit needs to be willing and able to do is meet the guilds specific raid schedule, and be willing to learn and improve based on the new tools that they will now have access to.
Another interesting thing that I'd like to see considered is for guilds to have a 7 day block on recruiting new players (or longer) if they boot someone. This means that it really is in the guilds best interest to get some training in to new recruits.
As time goes on people will recognise particular items, people and move sets which may hint of their strength. The most fun in a game is overcoming obstacles without Batmans utility belt to do majority of the work for you.
I can count many of time how I would try to bite more than I could chew in PVP situations simply because I was unaware of other players gear and would flag up on someone over a contested zone (naturally being more aggressive in play style at the time) and then next minute pucker up hard because they were stronger than me.
I believe as long as you are doing the correct rotations and people are communicating with one another in regards to how to better their performance and or gear without the aid of tools brings a more old school vibe in the community. Dont get me wrong there will still be people kicking people from groups and probably requesting screenshots of gear before doing raids / dungeons so you cannot avoid this however that will be the minority that are head strong.
Lets just all experience what this game will offer and become immersed without the need of addons and other things from Day 1.
In this type of situation, the raid can simply show that it was that player that caused the wipe, using the combat tracker as irrefutable proof.
If a guild allows it's members to get away with this kind of behavior, then the issue is with the leadership of the guild, not with the combat tracker.
I'm going to quote myself and provide an example of what I am talking about here, as I think this could well be the most important factor in this discussion.
My previous career was that of a chef. I ran restaunt and hotel kitchens for many years, Often, we would have to make decisions that would seem outright wrong to one group of people, but to anyone with the full picture, it would be literally the only decision that could be made.
An example of this was a night where I had a group of 20 diners in one of our smaller private dining rooms. We had to hurry them along a little more than we - and no doubt they - would have liked. We basically skipped over several steps in the order of service, and even made them pour their own water (oh, the humanity!). I have no doubt that if there was someone at that table that had some money behind them and enjoyed eating out, they would have thought to themself "if I ever own a restaurant, I'm never going to rush my guests like this".
The thing is, this group of people didn't know that in the other dining room, we had a group of 550 other diners that were about to order. The smaller group were 10 minutes late, and so we had to rush them to make up that 10 minutes. If we didn't rush them, they wouldn't have recieved their meals until after the kitchen had fed that group of 550 - which would have been far worse for them.
These people experienced my decision, the same was Steven seems to be saying he has experienced the decisions of other MMO developers. However, the diners in my situation didn't understand the decision, and Stevens words suggest he is in that same situation.
There are, in my mind, three decisions in relation to combat tracker use that need to be considered.
The first is EQ, the first EQ. That game proved that in a vacuum, players will create and use tools.
The next decision was WoW, which says that developers can't leave these tools to go unchecked.
The third was GW2, which says that even if they are against the rules, they will still be used, probably to the point where the developer will have to concede.
The astute student of this genre can't look at these things and assume the right path to take is no combat tracker, as that doesn't exist. The person that only experienced the result of these decisions may well just go "DPS meterz are bad", with included 'z' for emphasis, and run with it.
This is why I say experiencing a decision and understanding a decision are different things.
I disagree because I think DPS meters make encounters easier.
Personally, I'm all for a DPS meter verse a target dummy. It gives you a place to try out combos in a clean environment and makes it easier to test out the theory crafting you have done.
But I think for bosses and dungeons that making no DPS meter will make encourages a little harder. In a good way.
And I think it will be really hard to grudge people's real dps potential as Steven has stated previously that classes will synergize off each other to get more damage on the mob/boss. Someone may do less than half the damage of someone else, but that's because he's the support proc'ing a certain effect so that another class can capitalize on it and deal big damage.
So if a DPS meter was in the game, would that support get that damage from the other class rewarded to themself instead since he set it up? Would it be 50/50? Or would the other class who combos the ability to get all the reward on the DPS meter? So, I think it would more interesting to not see a DPS meter. So the blind can lead the blind and people who spend the time theory crafting are rewarded for their time.
Although, I haven't seen many people ask for this, but a group DPS meter for a target dummy would be awesome too! It wouldn't show individual DPS, but group DPS as a whole. I think that would be really cool for groups of 8 to try to get the highest DPS all together with their spells working together with synergies.
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Developers will always have a target difficulty of a content piece. This is often the first thing about a piece of content that is known - before the name of the content, before the race is known, before the location is known.
If developers have an idea that they want to make a piece of content that is a 7 on an arbitrary scale to 10, then they can do that, with or without tools - as long as those developers take those tools in to account.
Good to see that Intrepid is holding it's ground on the whole performance meter/metrics issue.